Few recipe collectors are as specialized in their focus as is Maraline Mazzetti Olson. Olson, whose nickname put the "Mimi" in the popular ice cream shop Screamin' Mimi, has accumulated close to 400 flavors since she opened her store in 1995 at the crossroads of highways 12 and 116.

"Of course, most people haven't seen the flavors in two or three years," says Olson, looking around her warmly hued, high-ceilinged storefront in downtown Sebastopol. "We only have room for so much in the case."

To this high-energy mother of one and former fashion stylist, Screamin' Mimi is merely an extension of her own love for excellent ice cream, a passion that was temporarily stymied when she and her husband moved here from New York in 1993 and found a lack of high-quality ice-cream establishments.

"Of course, I could have Ben and Jerry's or Haagen Dazs, they're good ice cream. But there's nothing special about going to the store, picking up a pint,

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and then going home and eating it," Olson says after sitting down at one of the quirky little tables that crowd Screamin' Mimi's front room. "There's something really nice about going and waiting in line and thinking about what you want and trying the different flavors."

East Coasters often go out for ice cream, Olson says, and she doesn't know exactly why, although the weather certainly has something to do with it.

"At night there, it's still 85 degrees and hot. The humidity and the mugginess might also have something to do with it," says the Manhattan transplant. "And then there are the extremes in the seasons. You go from the cold winter, with ice and snow, and then it's summertime -- it's ice cream time."

And in ice cream, as in almost everything else, California has its own state of mind. "I can't tell you how many people ask if I make goat's milk ice cream," says Olson, grimacing and rolling her eyes. "I mean, I'm a real traditionalist and a real ice cream snob. I don't see any reason to do sugar- free or honey-sweetened. I don't see any reason to do anything other than ice cream."

Olson reserves her greatest enthusiasm for her favorite chocolate flavors, but even the Screamin' Mimi line of sorbets are spectacular (they're sweetened with fructose or cane sugar, if you must know).

If Olson is tired of dealing with some Californians' nutritional foibles, she's still thrilled with California fruit, most of which she buys from local farmers. She buys local peaches for the subtly aromatic peach ice cream and gets her berries from Kozlowski farm. Sometimes Andy's Fruit Stand will call her and offer her a crate of melons that are getting too ripe; those, she says,

are some of the best for ice-cream making. She is even talking with Straus Family Creamery about the possibility of experimenting with a few organic ice cream flavors.

But you can tell from the flavors behind the glass that neither nutrition nor sociopolitical consciousness have ever been Olson's primary concern. Her highest-traffic flavors are the thoroughly trashy ones: s'mores, chocolate chip cookie dough, and Mimi's Mud, a breakthrough melange of chocolate chips, Oreos and homemade fudge in an espresso base.

Cookie Break, the flavor Olson is proudest of, is slightly more streamline. It is a vanilla base with Oreos and graham crackers, and at the 1998 new flavors competition of the National Ice Cream and Yogurt Retailers Association, it won second place. Not too shabby in a field of more than 40 contenders from around the country, but Olson remains disappointed with the results, blaming improper serving temperatures. She says ice cream should be served at 59 to 64 degrees; hers was sampled by judges at 32 degrees or below, which changes everything, she says.

"It changes the texture, it changes the flavor," she says passionately. "It's like wine. The warmer it gets, the more flavor you're gonna get the taste out of it." That, she says, is why a lot of people like their ice cream melted.

For storage, however, Olson's ice cream is first deep-frozen at 40 below zero, to fix the otherwise unstable blend of water and milk solids, and then moved into a freezer held at 1.4 degrees.

"Fortunately this summer we haven't had any (outages). But every summer since I've been open, we have five or six a summer," she says. "We can go for 24 hours with the stuff in the 40-below freezer, and that's it."

Outside of the freezers, the heart of Screamin' Mimi is in the back room: an industrial-looking ice-cream maker that looks like something Willy Wonka might tinker with on weekends. It's small, churning out only 2.5 gallons at a time, but just enough to keep up with the 7,000 gallons of ice cream that Screamin' Mimi sells in a typical year. It also allows Olson and her store manager, Teresa Peter, to try out small batches of new flavors.

Recent successes include raspberry cheesecake, cinnamon and a custom batch for a winery using their wine. Olson is also working on an experimental rose ice cream that she hasn't quite figured out. Some of the best inspirations come from customers and from Peter. "She's come up with a lot of flavors, like s'mores, which I've never actually had," says Olson. "I might have a little food snobbery about marshmallows, but I have made a couple of concessions, with the rocky road. Or take the chocolate chip cookie dough. It's kind of trashy." Then she laughs. "But you know, I eat cookie dough, too, so maybe not. "

Cone or cup? Screamin' Mimi is located at 6902 Sebastopol Ave. in Sebastopol. There is public parking near the downtown plaza. (707) 823-5902